Christopher Golden - The Nimble Man

Magic, he thought. For even as he watched she moved nearer the two hideous creatures, and neither noticed her.

With an elegant flourish, Ceridwen spread her arms and glided toward the Corca Duibhne; to Danny it almost seemed as though she were dancing. It was a strange moment of ballet, that ended with Ceridwen reaching out to touch the nearest of the two Night People. A blue light blossomed from her fingertips, blue-white mist leaked from her eyes in streams that floated on the air, and the sphere atop her staff flared with a moment of brilliance.

The monstrous creature froze, leathery skin turning that same ice-blue. A wave of chilling cold swept up the corridor and Danny shivered, staring at the scene that played out before him.

The second Corca Duibhne turned, shivering at the blast of frozen air, and its eyes widened. It opened its mouth, flashing yellow razor teeth, but before it could sound an alarm Ceridwen's free hand flashed out and gripped it by the throat. Her muscles were taut, but even in profile Danny could see her face was expressionless. Her eyes were as cold as the ice of her magic. The creature let out a single groan, but no cry of alarm came.

The ice formed first upon its yellow fangs. Then its eyes froze in its head. Moments later it was little more than an ice sculpture, just like the other.

"Holy shit," Danny whispered from the shadows.

Ceridwen swept her staff around in an arc that shattered them both. Thousands of shards of ice cascaded along the floor of the corridor. Then she stood still once more, as though she had not even moved, and she held her staff before her in both hands.

Danny felt a warm breeze begin to ruffle his hair. A wind sprang up in the corridor. One moment it was gentle, even pleasant, and the next it whistled in his ears and nearly knocked him off of his feet, a tropical blast of heat that seared his lungs when he inhaled. His claws dug into the wall and he clung to the corner, knowing if he fell he would give himself away. He watched in awe as the frozen remains of the two Corca Duibhne swirled and eddied in the hot wind.

They melted away to nothing, leaving not a drop of condensation on the floor.

Gone.

The wind died and Danny held his breath, staring at Ceridwen. The Fey sorceress went to the stairs and glanced upward, and then leaned over the balustrade, getting her bearings.

Then she turned her icy eyes upon him.

Danny shuddered. He had cloaked himself in darkness, had felt sure that his stealth was part of what he was, one of the few benefits of his supernatural genesis. If this was to be his life — the life of a monster — he'd thought at least there might be something good to come of it.

"Come here," Ceridwen said, and though she spoke in a whisper her words carried to him.

Abandoning any effort to hide himself, Danny hurried down the corridor to her. He glanced around at the many doors along the hall and at the stairs, worried that at any moment more of Morrigan's followers might discover them.

As he approached, Ceridwen grabbed his wrist and drew him up to her. Her fingers were ice upon his skin and that frozen mist still leaked from her eyes. She towered over him and he had not realized before just how tall she was. A shiver went up and down his spine but it was not the cold that made him tremble. Ceridwen was indeed beautiful, but it could be a terrible beauty, a cruel flawlessness.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded in a terse whisper.

"Helping," he said. "I wanted to help."

"Arthur told you to stay behind."

Danny had no response to that and so he said nothing. He felt his brows knit, felt his upper lip curl into another snarl, but could not prevent these reactions. They were instinctual. As much as he feared her, if Ceridwen did not let go of his wrist, he thought he might try to hurt her.

His ears twitched. Voices reached them from the stairwell. Someone was coming up from below. Ceridwen turned toward the stairs and raised her staff, but this time it was Danny who grabbed hold of her wrist.

"No," he whispered. "We're here to learn. To do that, we listen."

She glared at him a moment, and then she nodded. Danny moved swiftly and silently to the nearest door. It was unlocked, and he led Ceridwen inside. He left the door open several inches and knelt to put his eye to the crack. The room was dark, and once more he gathered the shadows around himself, hoping Morrigan's followers wouldn't be as perceptive as Ceridwen, hoping the darkness would keep them from noticing him spying.

He knew Ceridwen was behind him. Even now she would be standing above him, trying to peer into the hall. Danny could feel her there, could feel the cold. And that was the two of them. Ice and shadows.

Together they waited, and they listened, in the cold and the dark.

The glass was shattered in the doors of the Museum of Fine Arts. The broad stone stairs in front of the building's grand facade were swarming with the dead. Corpses crawled over one another, trying to get to the doors. The red mist that enveloped the entire city churned and rolled in clouds that obscured the horror surrounding the museum for a few seconds before thinning once more. Flags beat the air, jutting from the brow of the building, and banners advertising their latest exhibitions covered part of its face.

There were walking dead who were crumbling with every step, who were clothed in tatters. Some of them had lost arms or hands, even lower jaws, and what skin remained was parchment stretched across their cheeks or sunken eye sockets. Muscle tore as they walked, but the magic that propelled them was merciless. Some of them were brittle and withered.

Eve moved through the dead with her long sword like the reaper with his scythe. Yet this was a bloodless harvest. Her blade hacked into them with the pop and dry cracking noise of snapping kindling. Her coat flowed around her like a toreador's cape, but she did not need any red flag to draw their attention. The restless dead had been sent to the museum for a reason, but presented with targets, with vibrant, alive creatures to kill, they deviated from their mission.

She felt the blood race through her, her mind descending into a primitive rage that often enveloped her in combat. Her mouth opened and she howled a cry of battle that echoed out across the empty street. Her heightened senses brought to her the scent of Clay nearby, but he and the specter, Dr. Graves, were lost in the mist and the sea of staggering dead.

Cold fingers clutched at her jacket and snagged in her hair. Eve spun, bringing the sword around with both hands upon its grip. This time, however, the blade met more resistance. Some of the walkers were freshly dead, their flesh and muscle more substantial, their bones harder. Two hands grabbed her head and a pale, fat man in a three piece suit dipped his jaws as though he might tear out her throat.

Eve gave a cruel, rasping laugh as she thrust her sword point through his mid-section. With her preternatural strength she hoisted the fat cadaver off the ground and dumped him on top of several others. A dead woman, her face painted in the garish makeup of morticians the world over, seemed to grin as she reached out and twisted her fingers in the fabric of Eve's blouse, tugging at the spaghetti straps as though intent on tearing it off. Eve hacked her hands from her wrists.

It was a perverse death dance, a black-tie event, every corpse dressed in its Sunday best. But Eve wasn't getting anywhere. The limousine was back at the curb and she had made some progress, but not enough. She was at the bottom of the museum steps and cutting through the dead was taking too long. There were just too many of them. The sword was too slow.

"Squire!" she roared into the sky, into the red mist.

Off to her right was a statue of a man on horseback. She heard the goblin replying even as she spotted him, emerging from the dark shadow beneath the statue.